


Beneath The Willow

by Ash_Panda



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 19:19:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15647268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ash_Panda/pseuds/Ash_Panda
Summary: A collection of short stories involving the unstoppable passage of time.





	1. 365

**Author's Note:**

> This peice was written at a workshop where instead of veing given a prompt that started the story, we were given a prompt that ended the story and we were tasked with steering it there. I've forgotten what the prompt is by now. Sorry.

365 days. It has been exactly 365 days since the world fell apart. Most people let the days pass unnoticed, too busy curling up in a dark corner to try to live a semi normal life again. But not me.

I haven't given up hope that some day, things will be fixed. Someday, the virus will die out and humans will survive as they have before, and this will just be one more tragic plague that some student will have to write about for a history class. But someone has to keep track of the events. Someone has to keep track of the history to study.

So each say I mark a single tally in the old falling-apart notebook with a logo still barely visible on the front, and each day, I count how many tallies there are.

I am blessed, or to be more accurate, cursed with a fantastic memory. Because of this, I am able to remember the birthday of everyone I've ever known and loved. So, when those birthdays come around, I mark them with a small dot as a way of honoring them, and then, I cry for them.

365 days have passed... And it's also my birthday.

Today's tally is crooked, drawn with shaking hands. I wonder as I sit, clutching my ration allowed candle, if anyone I knew before noticed what day it is. I wonder if they cried for me, not knowing if I'm dead or alive. It's unlikely. There are so many friends and family members dead that I doubt anyone bothers to remember me. The one person who would've remembered is gone.

Had it been a normal day, I would've been woken up to an attempt at homemade chocolate chip pancakes, my favorite breakfast. They would have been burnt, of course, as they were every year. My brother would be standing defeated at the trash can as he threw them away, swearing that next year he would figure it out. If it was a normal year, we would have gone out to a diner for pancakes instead. Then we would head out to see a movie, preferably the worst looking movie in theaters at the time, just so we could sit in the back and laugh at it.

We had done this every year since I was 10. No matter what was going on in our lives at the time, there was always burnt pancakes and comically bad movies to look forward to. 365 days ago we had just come out of a movie, laughing so hard we were crying. A few hours later, in the back of a military vehicle trying to get us to safety, we would be crying for a completely different reason.

I remember how calm you were, and how panicked I was. Were you only pretending to be calm for me? It was likely, considering you had always been really good at that.

There was so much chaos, so much noise. Now... it's just the soft tapping of the heavy rain that manages to drown out everything else. I'm grateful for this, since I don't want to hear the sound I still haven't managed to grow accustomed to.

It was raining on the day I lost him too. The fences needed repairs, and of course he was the first to volunteer. He always was.

"Don't worry," he told me, "It won't take long, I'll be back in no time."

Everyone who came back that night said the same thing. They said he was a hero, that he refused to leave unless everyone got out first and the fence was fixed. I was so angry at him for so long. I was pissed that he had to be so damn selfless, that he couldn't save himself for once.

Yes, brother, I hated you. And I hate you now as I sit staring at this candle and listening to the rain. I hate you for hurting me and leaving me like you have. I hate you because it hurts too much to not blame you, and to instead keep on loving and missing you. I hate you because I know that even if you had survived that night, you still wouldn’t be here.

There were always volunteer missions. There was always a need for help and you were always eager to offer it. You would gladly die for anyone. But you wouldn’t live for me. I hate you for that.

Somewhere in the distance of this little survivor camp a chime sounds, signaling midnight.

It's been 366 days since the world fell apart. I mark the day with a small tally in my old, falling-apart notebook, blow out my single ration-allowed candle, and listen as the rain falls heavily above.


	2. The Road to Firelight Hill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I went through a V for Vendetta phase.

I thought I could trust her with my secret. I thought she loved me enough to keep it. Isn't it a mother's job to protect her daughter? She had promised me she wouldn't tell. She said she loved me. She said she would keep me safe.But she stood aside when they came. She did nothing as they handcuffed me and dragged me from our home. Then she cried when they threw me in the van. She cried as if she grieved. As if I was already dead. I might’ve well have been. But she cried as if she wasn’t the one who signed my death certificate before my pulse even stopped.

Hands grabbed my arms. Rough hands. I didn’t fight them because I knew there was no point in it. I didn’t yell. I didn’t try to tell them that I was innocent.

I didn’t cry.

I stared my mother right in her watering eyes as the rough hands pulled me back through my own front door, out of the house I had grown up in. My home. The place I was supposed to feel the most safe in, yet it was the place that housed the woman who cared more about the laws than her own child. So perhaps it wasn’t a home at all.

I hated the rules. I had hated them from a very young age. When I was 7, a boy in my class was taken away from school after kissing another boy on the playground. Our principal told us it was because the boy was 'broken' and they were going to fix him. He was 7 years old. As I got older, I began to figure it out. More and more people were taken away. My neighbor, my teacher, and even my aunt were all dragged away, and each time I was reassured that they were just going to be fixed. But I knew what they meant by broken. They weren't heterosexuals or cisgenders. When I started having crushes on guys, I thought I was safe. Even my mother was relieved when I got my first boyfriend in the 7th grade. But then, in my last year of middle school, I met her.

There were four other people in the van with me. A boy who was crying uncontrollably, a girl with jagged short hair, another girl with long blonde hair who looked terrified, and James, the star athlete at my school. We said nothing to each other, sitting in pained silence that was occasionally broken by the boy's sobs. I couldn't blame him for crying. I was crying too, though I hadn't noticed it until I felt a tear dropped onto my lap.

The van ride was rough. We had nothing to stop us from falling to the side when they made sharp turns, and we had difficulty righting ourselves again with our arms handcuffed behind our backs. Eventually, I learned to relax my wrists to stop the metal from digging into them as much.

Eventually, the blonde girl spoke, her voice as soft and timid as I expected it to be, "What are they going to do to us?"

"Beat the gay out of us until we either give in, or they decide to kill us." James said, staring at the floor of the van. I was surprised by his bluntness. In fact, I was surprised he was there at all.

"I think they're taking us to the Firelight Hill facility." The sobbing boy said, though he had long since cried out all of his tears and was now reduced to whimpering and sniffling.

James chuckled darkly, "Well, I guess we can give up all hope of getting out." The James I knew from school was never this cold. He was the golden boy with the warm smile. I understood, of coursE. We we’re being lead towards our graves, and everyone confronts their demise differently. This boy was someone who had a future. Scholarships, goals, and hope, all laid out ahead of him only to be ripped away, discarded somewhere along the road we were being yanked over.

"I-I thought if they cured us, we could go home," The blonde girl said, "They told me they would help, and then I could be happy again"

"They lied. You didn't see those kids from St. Margaret's that came out of Firelight. They might as well have been dead. " The girl with short hair spoke up, barely looking away from the spot on the wall she was staring holes into.   
It was at this point that the blonde girl broke down, her sobs echoing in the dark van, and her cries of, "I don't want to die. I don't want to die!" Drowning out anything else the others had to say.

The girl with short hair kicked her lightly, and when the blonde girl didn't respond, she kicked her again. "Hey! Calm down! Do you want them to come back here and beat you for being too loud?" She said harshly. The blond girl bit her lip, stifling her sobs, though her shoulders still shook violently.

I chose to remain silent through all of this. There was no point in talking to these people. The chances we would ever see each other after we left the van were slim.

Apparently, James noticed my silence,because he nudged me with the toe of his shoe. "Hey, you went to my school. Hanna, right?"

I nodded in reply.

"We had AP Literature together, didn't we? You gave that presentation about To Kill a Mockingbird that the teacher got mad at, didn't you?"

Another nod.

"No offence, Mr. Macho, but it doesn't seem your friend here is too interested in a reunion right now." The girl with short hair said.

"I'm just trying to lighten the air up a bit. If those bastards are going to kill me, I'd like to know one of my last memories won't be sitting scared in a dark van waiting to die." James said before falling into silence.

Suddenly, the blonde girl spoke up, her voice barely audible, "I'm Ella."

James looked up and smiled at her, "Hi Ella, I'm James."

"Well, since we're all being so friendly, I'm Trissia, or at least that's what they'll tell you to call me." The girl with short hair said.

A realization spread through the van.

The first of us to voice this realization was Ella, "You're one of them?" She asked.

Although the homosexuals of the nation were considered disgusting, the 'them' Ella referred to was a community of people on a whole different level. They were the ones that didn't think they were the gender they were born as. They were commonly known as the Crossers, as the term for them that was once commonly accepted had died out soon after the law was passed.

The Crossers are the reason most schools have a hair length code, and why women aren't allowed in the men's section of clothing stores and vice-versa.

"Yeah, I am." She... Or he said, kicking the floor of the van lightly and knocking me out of my memories.

"What's your name?" I asked quietly.

Trissia stopped the kicking and looked up to stare at me with confused eyes. "I already told you."

"No, not the name they gave you. I want to know your name." I clarified.

"It's... It's Tristan." He said, his voice quiet. The strong demeanor he held just moments ago crumbled in an imstant.

James looked to the other boy, who's messy brown hair was covering his face as he stared at his hands. "And what about you? What's your name?" James asked.

The boy looked up, his eyes wide. "Uh.. Me? Kyle. I mean... Just... Ky." He stuttered.

James chuckled, "Well, 'just Ky' it's nice to meet you." He said, grinning at him. Ky responded with a small, weak smile and a nod.

Suddenly, the vehicle felt like it was beginning to slow down and a new wave of fear began to wash over me. I took a deep, shaky breath in an attempt to calm my nerves.

"Whatever happens in there... Whatever they do to us... We have to remember who we are." James said quietly. "And whoever makes it out needs to remember those who don't."

We all nodded in agreement and waited in sullen silence as we listened to the sound of gravel crunching under boots and then the doors of the van swinging open.

Light poured into the previously pitch black area, and I found myself squinting to make out the shapes of men as they pulled us one by one from the van. A hand grabbed my shoulder and yanked me to the rough gravel ground. I lost my footing almost immediately and, with nothing to break my fall, found myself landing hard on my shoulder. The same hand as before yanked me back up, and I was urged forward.


	3. Who Reaps the Reaper?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks WritingPrompts.

One last time, I strolled the barren lands of the Earth. I had so meticulously stripped it of any human life, and now it was empty. The vast expansions of land which had once been filled with lucious green crops was now gray, the soil turned to dust which blew up and swirled under my footsteps.

Here was where I had taken the first. It had been a child. She was so fragile, abandoned by her parents when the hunting started turning up bare and they had to move. I found her in this field, playing with a wilting flower. I had taken her hand so gently, leading her to my home. There she would never be hungry again. There she wouldn’t be alone.

  
I brought home so many different people. Some were old, too many were young. I watched as families were united in my world. Some, though, I kept apart for the sake of my souls. I never allowed the first girl’s parents to see her again, even once they expressed regret for leaving her alone. I couldn’t do that to her. The abusers were never comfortable in my home, not after they had hurt my souls and sent them to me too early.

I learned from the ones I brought with me. I learned of great nations, conquests, victories, and defeats. I’ve learned of love and loss. I’ve heard of the grief caused by my collections, how many people cursed me in their sobs of pain. Yet I wasn’t always feared. I’ve had people run from me, sure. It was their human nature to do so. But I’ve also had people welcome me with open arms. I’ve seen them smile as I approached their hospital beds and touched their pale hands.

And I’ve had people run to me. These are always the most painful. I didn’t know I could feel grief until I took a young man’s hand and saw the regret in his eyes. There are too many of them. Too many who had ran to me out of fear or anger or pain. I take them all with open arms, but I’ve never seen any of them have that same smile of relief that appears on the faces of those who lived their full lives before I went to them. They all wanted to go back. They all wanted to feel the sun once more and to take back what they had done. I gave them peace, but that regret never went away.

My home is full now. Children play and laugh, families that were once separated hold each other close. I gave them what they could never have in life. I gave them time, and most of them used it well.

There are no hands for me to take now. There are no souls for me to bring home. I had often wondered what would happen when I had collected the last soul. I half expected the Earth to disappear after I took the last old man’s wrinkled hand. Time no longer had any souls to press her cruel self into. But there was no big event. No explosion. No change. The man went peacefully to my home, and I was left alone on the barren planet. I walked one last time. I remembered every single hand I took. Every single life I took home with me. There was nothing left of them on the place they had called home.

Who reaps the reaper? Now that there was no more life to take, would there be a purpose for me? Who kills Death?

Life.

That’s who came for me in the end. She found me in the place where I had found her. Still so small, yet now her dark skin was covered in pure white robes. She smiled at me, just as she had so long ago. Behind her eyes was the wisdom of a million souls. She had learned from every life I brought home with me. She had been there the whole time, breathing her spirit into everything.

“Why didn’t you keep working here?” I asked as she approached me. “Why did you let me win?”

She laughed, “Win? There was never a war between us. We cannot exist without one-another. And I never stopped my work here. Don’t you feel me? I’m in the wind that blows up the dust beneath you. Don’t you see me? I’m in the trees and the bushes. I’m in the birds chirping and the leaves rustling. There is so much of me here still. But I am not done, and neither are you, old friend.” She held her hand out to me, and I took it. “You’ll have what you never could. I’m giving you life. I’m returning your souls to this world so that you will not be alone. You once brought me to your home when I was alone, now I’m taking you to mine.”

For the first time, I felt the ground below my feet and the wind against my skin. I was alive. What is Death for death? It is life.

“Will I ever see my home again?” I asked her, a sudden fear washing over me.

“Of course. I will come for you as you came for me. Life always becomes Death in the end. Cherish the gift I have given you, and when you have lived fully, I’ll bring you home again.”

I was old when we met again. I had forgotten all about my home, about my souls. I had loved and married. I had children who grew and had children of their own. I grieved and cursed Death when she stole my husband from me. If I had remembered where he would go, perhaps I wouldn’t have cried. But I did. And I did again when I lost one of my children too soon. But I continued on. I earned money and donated what I didn’t need. I gave back to the community in every way I could. In my husband and child’s honor I opened a group foster home, as I had heard the horrors of the system from my children. Instead of fighting their deaths any longer, I celebrated their lives. I died with my family beside me. We told stories and smiled until my final moments.

That was when I saw her again. She was older now, still wearing the white robes. “It’s time to come home, old friend. You’ve used my gift well, but it’s time to rest.” 


End file.
